20 bullet holes spotted on Japan schooners invading Russia waters

TOKYO, January 31 (Itar-Tass) - A total of 20 bullet holes were
spotted on sides of Japanese schooners that had invaded Russian
territorial waters, reported on Saturday the regional headquarters of the
Japanese Maritime Safety Administration.
The fishing Taka Maru 58 had 15 holes and the Kiyomi Maru 63 had five
holes. There were 15 fishermen aboard the two vessels, but none of them
was wounded.
The public relations centre of the Sakhalin borderguard authority
reported on Saturday that Russian borderguards opened fire on two Japanese
boats on January 29 at 13.20 Sakhalin time. The vessels were 1.5 sea miles
from the coast of Kunashir Island (South Kuriles), but ignored a demand to
stop for inspection.
Following warning shots, Russian borderguards were forced to open fire
to hit. Coastguard ships were dispatched to the area of the incident, but
transgressor ships had time to sail outside Russian territorial waters and
arrived in the Japanese port of Rausu in the northern island of Hokkaido.
A press release of the border authority of the Russian Federal
Security Service notes that an investigation jointly with the Japanese
side is now in progress, and "the Russia side will defend, in future too,
its state interests in a legal way". The fact of a failure by the Japanese
schooners to obey orders was video filmed.
At the same time, the Japanese Foreign Ministry claimed "the incident
took place some 4.5 sea miles west of Kunashir Island". Therefore,
"fishermen were in an area, permitted for fishing in compliance with the
bilateral agreement".
This claim was conveyed to the Tass office in Tokyo on Saturday by the
spokesman of the Japanese Foreign Ministry. "The Japanese Foreign Ministry
sent an official presentation to the Russian Foreign Ministry, demanding
that measures should be taken to prevent such incidents in future," the
ranking diplomat noted.
The Taka Maru 58 and Kiyemi Maru 63 schooners, each with a
displacement of 19 tonnes, belong to a local fishing cooperative society.
Its spokesman Katsuhiro Tanaka called on Saturday on the Japanese
authorities with a demand "to send a protest to the Russian side through
appropriate departments". "The fishermen have not violated anything," he
said. "They risked their lives at the same time," he added.
The boats are quipped with the latest satellite systems, permitting to
track their moves on-line. The Hokkaido authorities, guided by these data,
also claimed that the Japanese fishermen did not leave the limits of the
zone permitted for fishing.
-0-bur/gor